Unspeakable Secrets The Alchemist Series (A Dark Medieval Progression Fantasy)

Chapter 61 Demonspawn

"Yes," Adelia said as she tore the fabric she'd wound around her head away, revealing her face and the filed-down nubs of horns upon her head only partially obscured by her mane of black hair.

Connor opened his mouth as though to ask a question but closed it again just as quickly. He found himself shaking his head slowly from side to side as every part of him wished to wake from this nightmare.

First Vadik... and now you? He thought.

The two people he'd trusted more than anyone, with the possible exception of Victor, were anything but what he'd thought them to be.

It felt as though reality itself dropped away beneath him into a yawning chasm that swallowed him whole.

He took in more of her with a feeling akin to being in a waking nightmare and at last noticed the demonic tail coiled around her left leg as though trying to hide itself from view.

He opened his mouth again to ask a question. To ask how she could've hidden this. How he could've not noticed a tail.

A tense moment of silence followed between them before Connor could at last begin to put his thoughts into words.

"How?" he asked, "how did you hide it so well?"

"Makeup," Adelia said, "and magic."

A dark, almost manic laughter bubbled its way up Connor's throat.

"You can do magic too?" he asked.

"I try not to," she said.

He shook his head, remembering all the times he'd complained about being unable to find someone to teach him.

That must've been hilarious for her, he thought bitterly.

Time was running out. Another patrol would come by at some point and he still had more of the ship to investigate before making his escape.

He knew what the right thing to do was. He knew he should turn around and walk away. It wasn't as though it were merely prejudice on his part, as badly as he wished for that to be the case.

No... he'd helped the army hunt down demonspawn over the years. Often the offspring of idiot cultists and their demon masters. Demonspawn were monstrously evil. It ran through their veins. It was simply their nature. Not unlike the grych.

Yet, very often far more powerful.

He'd followed in the wake of the horrors they unleashed while tracking them. He'd seen what it cost in blood to put one down.

It was not without good reason that most every decent civilization advised their citizens to notify the army on sighting such creatures, to ensure their extermination.

Fury and a strange kind of grief throbbed in Connor's skull as he stared at her.

Anger not only at her... but at himself. It wasn't as though there hadn't been signs. He'd witnessed her perform feats of strength no human should've been capable of. He'd known about her enhanced senses. Her thirst for blood and... flexible morality.

He'd assumed for a while now that she had some form of darkness within her. His greatest suspicion was that she'd been some kind of werewolf. Though she'd never seemed to be effected by the moon, he'd thought perhaps she had some way of counteracting the effects.

A werewolf he could've accepted. Had, in many ways, already accepted. But, for her to be the child of a demon? With that same liquid evil pulsing through her very being?

It would be insane. Unreasonable. Utterly irresponsible and a gross dereliction of duty not simply to Lestria, Vigil, or Victor but to all that was good in the world to allow her to live let alone to even consider freeing her.